This is what I saw, rudely printed in lead pencil on the inside of a sheet of common writing-paper:
“I am a wicked girl. I have knone things all the time which I had ought to have told but I didn’t dare to he said he would kill me if I did I mene the tall splendud looking gentulman with the black mustash who I met coming out of Mister Levenworth’s room with a key in his hand the night Mr. Levenworth was murdered. He was so scared he gave me money and made me go away and come here and keep every thing secret but I can’t do so no longer. I seem to see Miss Elenor all the time crying and asking me if I want her sent to prisun. God knows I’d rathur die. And this is the truth and my last words and I pray every body’s forgivness and hope nobody will blame me and that they wont bother Miss Elenor any more but go and look after the handsome gentulman with the black mushtash.”
BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED
XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL
“It out-herods Herod.”
Hamlet.
“A thing devised by the enemy.”
Richard III.
A half-hour had passed. The train upon which I had every reason to expect Mr. Gryce had arrived, and I stood in the doorway awaiting with indescribable agitation the slow and labored approach of the motley group of men and women whom I had observed leave the depot at the departure of the cars. Would he be among them? Was the telegram of a nature peremptory enough to make his presence here, sick as he was, an absolute certainty? The written confession of Hannah throbbing against my heart, a heart all elation now, as but a short half-hour before it had been all doubt and struggle, seemed to rustle distrust, and the prospect of a long afternoon spent in impatience was rising before me, when a portion of the advancing crowd turned off into a side street, and I saw the form of Mr. Gryce hobbling, not on two sticks, but very painfully on one, coming slowly down the street.
His face, as he approached, was a study.